Laptop shopping: Can anyone with an intel gma 4500mhd test thief or system shock 2?

PingSpike on 19/2/2010 at 20:26

I'm looking to buy a netbook soon, and would like the ability to play older games on it. Intel graphics stink, but the 4500mhd is the least crappy one they offer on some of the laptops I'm looking at. I'm wondering if it displays games like thief and system shock II without the crappy colors problem, but I can't find any confirmation out there on this particular intel chipset. I know there's ddfix, but there are other games that suffer the same problem and since the thief community here seems to know more about this problem it would be the easiest test.

So, if anyone has this intel graphics adapter I would greatly appreciate it if they could test thief or system shock 2 without the ddfix and confirm whether there is or isn't the crappy colors problem?

Also, I wonder if the same chipset supports fixed aspect ratio scaling? That's where if you set a 4:3 resolution like 800x600 it will display the screen with black bars on the sides rather then stretching the whole thing over the screen. (Again, thief has a fix for this but unfortunately other older titles often do not.)

Thanks in advance!

bob_doe_nz on 19/2/2010 at 21:18

My lappy is Toshiba L300 with Intel GMA 4500M

(http://img39.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dump000.jpg)

Inline Image:

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/4366/dump000.th.jpg Running Interference without gamma adjust.

(http://img203.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dump000a.jpg)

Inline Image:

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/2238/dump000a.th.jpg Running Interference with gamma adjust +2.0 via Irfanview.

(http://img685.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img4020a.jpg)

Inline Image:

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/4459/img4020a.th.jpg Screenshot of menu with sidebars. Most likely due to GMA hardware and it's settings.

(http://img33.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img4021a.jpg)

Inline Image:

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/3889/img4021a.th.jpg Running at 640x480

PingSpike on 19/2/2010 at 22:46

Awesome, thank you so much bob doe! Just to confirm, your copy of thief used on you laptop is NOT using ddfix correct?

Thanks again!

Nameless Voice on 20/2/2010 at 03:31

Why would you want to run it without DDFix, though? It looks worse.

bob_doe_nz on 20/2/2010 at 10:40

Quote Posted by PingSpike

Awesome, thank you so much bob doe! Just to confirm, your copy of thief used on you laptop is NOT using ddfix correct?

Yes, and I'm with Nameless Voice. Why not use DDFix? Is it a NOTEbook or NETbook you are using?

PingSpike on 20/2/2010 at 14:46

Hi guys, thanks for the input.

Anyway, the reason I want to know if the thief does not have that dithering problem WITHOUT the fix is just to confirm whether the intel graphics chip has that issue at all. It appears it does not based on bob_doe_nz's tests. I will likely play thief/ss2 on this laptop with the fix anyway. However, I have other games from the same era (Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight is the first that springs to mind) that DO NOT have great fixes like this available. I'd like to play those games without the issue as well! I asked on thief forum instead of the other forums because people here understand the issue, since it is more obvious in the shadowed levels of thief rather than the bright crispy levels of Jedi Knight. Basically, I was hoping some one could use thief as a proxy to test this.

The units I'm looking at are classified as netbooks most of the time. The old 10" units using the intel GMA 950 were a little to small and slow in basic tasks. But there are some $400-500 units on newegg now using 11.6" and 12" screens. There are three basic types though:
1) AMD neo with hd3200 graphics: I know for a fact ati dx10 cards have dithering issues with old games.
2) Intel Atom + nvidia ion/9400: I know for a fact nvidia dx10 cards have dithering issues with old games.
3) Intel CULV with intel 4500 graphics. I suspected this worked, but didn't know for sure. I think I'm going to go this route now.

Thanks again for your help!

Nameless Voice on 20/2/2010 at 14:53

Bear in mind that the Intel cards are probably too slow to play most modern games, in case you are also interested in those.

PingSpike on 20/2/2010 at 16:17

Yeah, I'm not really planning to play modern games on the laptop. I've got a desktop that's pretty powerful for that anyway...true "gaming" laptops are usually pricey, large and get poor battery life...in addition to still not being that great for games. The 3200 and Ion are better graphics cards optiions, but none of the options in the price/size range I'm looking at are great. (I don't really expect them to be)

The most demanding titles I hope to run on this laptop are Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Wolfenstein: ET and Half Life multiplayer. I know the Atom+Ion or Neo+3200 would do better on this, but both of those platforms are slightly more expensive, get worse batter life and have issues will older games.